The fellowship, slated to last six months, offers an opportunity for collaboration among a diverse group of journalists, researchers, data scientists, and web developers from across Africa.
The Centre for Journalism Innovation and Development (CJID), with support from Luminate, inducted, on 28th May, 15 journalists and technologists into the maiden edition of its AI-in-Journalism Fellowship. The 15 fellows were selected from over 500 applications from Nigeria and Ghana.
According to CJID, the fellowship, the first of its kind in Africa, aligns with its mandate to advance media innovations and support the development and integration of open-source civic technology and artificial intelligence tools that will be useful in driving democratic accountability and promoting ethical practices in the media and civil society ecosystem.
The fellowship, slated to last six months, offers an opportunity for collaboration among a diverse group of journalists, researchers, data scientists, and web developers from across the continent to develop AI-integrated solutions that complement and improve the quality of journalistic practices in Africa and worldwide.
While welcoming the AI fellows to the induction ceremony, Akintunde Babatunde, the director of programs at CJID, said the idea is to support the development of AI tools for journalists by journalists so as to improve the way journalism is done in the AI age.
"AI has come to stay, and one of the professions that stands an opportunity for disruption is journalism, so it is important for us to get on the train of this innovation by developing tools that will improve the way journalists do their jobs even better."
Mr Babatunde said there is apprehension in the industry about whether AI will take the jobs of journalists. He said while the concerns are valid, it is smart for professionals in the industry to think of how to innovate and collaborate with the available AI tools so as to make journalism better and more efficient. He expressed optimism that the tools these fellows will build during this fellowship will revolutionise journalism practice in Africa.
According to Monsur Hussain, head of Innovation at CJID, each team will leverage AI technologies to develop an innovative idea that can address a specific challenge or opportunity in the journalism or media sector. The ideas and solutions received for the fellowship range from AI-powered newsroom tools to audience engagement platforms.
The fellowship induction followed CJID's AI in Journalism Dialogue, where CJID launched two innovative AI tools to combat information disorder in Africa: the Dubawa Audio/Video Transcription App and the Dubawa Chatbot for information verification and media literacy.
About the Fellowship:
The AI-in-Journalism Fellowship aims to foster collaboration between technologists and journalists to develop innovative solutions that address the challenges and opportunities arising from the integration of AI in journalism. By bringing together diverse perspectives and expertise, CJID aims to:
● Stimulate innovation by encouraging the development of cutting-edge AI-powered tools and technologies that enhance journalistic practices, content creation, and audience engagement.
● Foster collaboration and facilitate partnerships between technologists and journalists to co-create solutions that address the media industry's specific challenges.
● Empower and equip journalists with the knowledge and skills to effectively use AI technologies in their reporting and storytelling processes.
● Promote transparency, accountability, and ethical considerations in developing and deploying AI-driven journalism tools and platforms.
2024 AI-in-Journalism Fellows and Their Project Ideas:
1. News Lab:
NewsLab is a revolutionary technology designed to transform the journalism industry by harnessing the power of artificial intelligence (AI). It aims to address major challenges faced by newsrooms and media platforms, including information overload, content discovery, fact-checking, plagiarism, and audience engagement.
Team members:
- Oluwakeji Onabajo
- David Adeleke
- Emmanuel Bello
- Olamide Tejuoso
- Francis Uka
2. News Accessibility Platform:
The News Accessibility Platform (NAP) is an AI-driven initiative designed to enhance news accessibility for people with hearing and visual impairments in Nigeria. It aims to reduce information disparities and enable equal access to news for everyone. NAP leverages facial detection, object recognition, machine learning, and sentiment analysis to provide features like text-to-audio conversion, Braille translation, key story extracts, audio transcripts, video descriptions, and closed captioning. The platform centralises accessibility tools, streamlining the process for newsrooms, reducing costs, and ensuring consistent accessibility across all news content. The expected impact includes increased news consumers among the deaf and blind community, enhanced efficiency and productivity in newsrooms, reduced duplication of efforts, faster content adaptation, improved collaboration, and cost-effectiveness. The minimum acceptable output includes a user-interactive platform with text-to-speech, alternative text for images, text-to-Braille, visual descriptive recognition, local language options, and visual manipulation tools, as well as collaboration with newsrooms and awareness among disability groups.
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Team members:
- Zainab Sanni
- Dana Daniel
- Glory Chidalu
- Peters Onyilo
- Abdulrafiu Izuafa
- Irene Ofori-Agyeman
3. Chat-Journo: Chat-Journo is a chatbot that optimises the productivity of newsrooms and strengthens fact-based journalism by generating credible and reliable backstories for news articles.
Team Members:
- Victor Ejechi
- Kunle Daramola
- Abasiodiong Udofia
- Abubakar Aliyu
Each fellow is expected to commit 10 hours weekly to the fellowship as they join their teams in developing their proposed solutions.
Key Milestones in Fellowship:
● Development of Minimum Viable Products: Over the next five months, fellows clustered into three teams will collaborate to build, test, and refine their Minimum Viable Products (MVPs).
● MVP Showcasing at the MDC'24: Each team will showcase their MVPs to a global audience of media experts, journalists, and technologists at the 2024 CJID Media and Development Conference.
● Grant Funding: Top-performing teams will receive grants to develop further and scale their MVPs for public use and widespread adoption.
